Furthering ‘nutrient stewardship’ is crucial to ensuring global food security and a key driver of fertiliser industry growth, Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC) president Dr Abdulrahman Jawahery has said.

“In order to meet food demand of the increasing world population, we need to get more crops from our arable lands,” said Dr Jawahery, who has been elected the new president of the International Fertiliser Association (IFA), in a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

“To realise this, plants must be fed in a correct and balanced manner.

“During my two-year presidency, I wish to concentrate more on furthering the cause of ‘nutrient stewardship’ which means correct and balanced plant feeding.”

“Over the next five years, world fertiliser demand is projected to grow steadily,” he told the GDN in an interview.

According to him, there appear to be four main drivers of growth for fertilisers and supplements: biofuels, food and nutrition security, environmental concerns and organic production.

Industry stakeholders also need to be ready to anticipate new opportunities and respond with products that suit the needs of users, he said.

“Entry into new markets is challenging and extensive market research is required for product introduction.”

Citing industry data, Dr Jawahery said in the medium term, global fertiliser consumption is expected to grow moderately at the rate of 1.8 per cent annually to 199.4 million tonne (mt) in 2018.

Total sales in the fertiliser and industrial sectors in 2018 are forecast at 263mt, representing a 12 per cent increase over 2013.

“Investments in new capacity by the fertiliser industry will have positive effects in the form of new supply to secure growing fertiliser demand and employment in the manufacturing and mining sectors,” he said.

These developments equate to a total investment of $110 billion.

Dr Jawahery said as many as 40,000 direct jobs and 60,000 indirect jobs are expected to be created through the fertiliser industry’s ongoing investments in new productive capacity.

Talking about ammonia and urea, both of which are used as fertilisers and are major products of GPIC, he said global ammonia capacity is projected to grow 16 per cent over 2013, reaching 245mt in 2018.

The main additions to capacity will be in East Asia (China, Indonesia), Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria), West Asia (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Bahrain) and Latin America (Venezuela, Brazil).

Global ammonia supply in 2018 is projected at 176mt and demand at 161mt, Dr Jawahery added, whereas global urea capacity would increase by 41mt between 2013 and 2018, to 245mt. This corresponds to a compound annual growth rate of three per cent.

He said the IFA would also improve the compilation of fertiliser related statistics from around the world.

“I would also like to see the continuance of IFA initiatives on health-safety-environment (HSE) issues and carry out more benchmarking studies amongst the member companies on HSE initiatives and reward the best ones.”

Dr Jawahery is a founding member of the Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association and was also recently named to head the Arab Fertiliser Association. - TradeArabia News Service